Cruel To Be Kind
by PyroStorm
Summary: Why did Jack leave Vlad out in space? To protect his family? To gain revenge for the lies? ... Or was it an act of mercy? Post Phantom Planet Oneshot


**Another smart Jack Fenton oneshot. It's been collecting dust in one of my notebooks, so I thought I'd type it up and put it here. Hope you enjoy!**

**I don't own Danny Phantom.  
**

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The Disasteroid incident was a time of big revelations and decisions involving my family. One of these was that my son Danny decided to reveal to the entire world that he was Amity Park's ghostly superhero, Danny Phantom.

The second was a truth that had been hidden from me. However, looking back at everything that was said and done, I was probably seeing and hearing what I wanted to and not what was really meant. But what did I find out? While in the depths of space, I found out that Vlad Masters, the man who I trusted and thought was my best friend, wanted me dead because of the portal accident in college that 'ruined his life' and because I had 'stolen Maddie' from him. He said all this, and then flew off to deal with the asteroid. The Ectoranium asteroid which negated his powers.

He came back, saying that I was still his old friend Vlad, who I had talked with, laughed with and _trusted_. That was when my view of him really changed. He wasn't my best friend anymore; the Vlad I knew was long dead. The man standing before me had been willing to endanger billions of lives in a greed-induced lust for more money and more power that he had already gained from abusing his powers. He had put my family in danger countless times, put our reputations at stake and tried to hurt or kill us on several different occasions just so he could have Maddie and Danny. He had lied, cheated and stolen from people and he felt no guilt whatsoever for his actions.

How could I let him return, knowing what he had done? He was a danger to the world, my family and me, and if I let him return he wouldn't leave us alone, provided the asteroid didn't obliterate everything.

He was a danger to my family, and now that I knew that I was not willing to let him hurt the people I loved in any way.

So I left him out in space …

Why did I leave him out in space? I could have brought him back and given him a second chance, or found a way to keep him far away from my family, or something like that. Part of the reason was, of course, because I didn't want to risk the safety of Maddie, Jazz and Danny.

But if I had let him return, he would have been despised and shunned by society. His reputation was in tatters, his business, property and money would be confiscated and he would not have anywhere to go, nowhere to hide from what he had done.

So by leaving him out in space, in a strange and perhaps twisted way, I have shown him mercy. Instead of spending the rest of his days trying to hide and rebuild his life completely step-by-painful-step, he now had time to reflect on his actions over the past twenty years. Maybe he would see the error of his ways and come to feel guilt for everything he had done wrong. Perhaps, in time, he would even begin to wish he had put the past behind us and accept the path that life had given him to walk.

When I talked to Danny about what Vlad had said, to find out if he really had been telling the truth or was just telling me more lies, I told him about my choice to give Vlad time to think and wondered aloud whether or not I'd made the right decision.

"Vlad will realise, years from now, just what he has lost." Danny said. "He's lost his money, his power – everything. He's on his own with a long time to think about things, and he'll begin to miss everything now it's gone. Including the chance to apologise to you and be friends again." The way he said it was like he had seen Vlad like this, and he looked so haunted by the memory I didn't question him further on it.

I don't know what Vlad will do now; whether he will fly off into the depths of space in an attempt to leave everything behind, or whether he will just watch the earth spin slowly round, yearning for all that's lost and knowing that he can't have it. Whatever he does, I am satisfied with the reasons for my actions. They may have been cruel …

… but I had to be cruel to be kind.

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**I was actually inspired by a random saying that popped into my head one day - _"Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind"_ - and somehow linked it to Danny Phantom, which created this.**

**I'd also like to say sorry for anything I've got wrong about the events of Phantom Planet; this was written a few months after I'd seen it. Hope you enjoyed it or found it interesting!  
**


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